"What if?" is just one of many things sci-fi can be about. If you seriously can't enjoy sci-fi if it doesn't make you think about those questions, you're seriously limiting yourself.

Educate me then. What else can sci-fi be about than the impact of future technology on our lives?

Seriously? Sci-fi is nearly always about us, here, now. Star Trek is only very rarely actually about future technology. The Undiscovered Country for example is about the end of the Cold War, and more generally about inter-ethnic and -national strife. What sci-fi often does is make subtler points about the core issues of real-world situations by dressing them up in costumes. The Federation and the Klingons have parallels to the US and the USSR, but they are also different in many ways as well, distancing the movie somewhat from their real-world counterparts. This technique softens the blow, and allows sci-fi to deal with often touchy issues in a way that doesn't make people put their guard up.

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MorbidBlood wrote:

So the winner is Destruction and Infernal Overkill is the motherfucking skullcrushing poserkilling satan-worshiping 666 FUCK YOU greatest german thrash record.

But every movie ever made is about us, here, now. You can't use that to define sci-fi. The Undiscovered Country expands the scale of war to the intergalactic, enabled by technology, and gives us a glimpse of what you described would look like at that level. Of course we find it's not much different from our own circumstances, but that's what the best sci-fi always does: present a new technological possibility and use it to reflect back on relevant issues across various fields.

Also, I saw Universal Soldier: Day Of Reckoning, which is strangely compelling? Like, it looks really professional and has some really great cinematography. There's a scene towards the beginning that looked like it could've dropped out of a super-stylish, hyper-violent eighties action movie, with some John Woo-esque camera work. The movie isn't a through and through action movie, but it's weirdly suspenseful and genuinely interesting in a lot of places. Also most of the action is super violent, though. The opening scene is pretty crazy.

I think I'm developing a strange fetish for ultra-violence in movies. I've always been a fan of super violence, but I feel like I'm not satiated with a movie unless somebody gets their face ripped off, or gets a limb blown off and the ensuing carnage is gallons of blood splattering. I'm still not a fan of tortuous violence. Never have been, really.

Disconnect [2012] - 4.5/5 - A really great and inspiring movie about a certain group of people having human connections on today's internet controlled world. I don't really enjoy watching "DRAMA" films because they always make me drowsy but the dramatic mood on this film gave me a bit of excitement because the story was really good that it made myself thrilled to know what would happen next! Highly recommended!.

I'm not. I'm saying that sci-fi is a subset of every movie ever made. The difference between sci-fi and regular movies is that, as I said before, when sci-fi addresses these issues, it does so through indirect representation rather than direct representation. Or not - Alien for example doesn't really deal with any technological or political or social issues, it's almost purely a "feeling" movie, and that's fine too.

Expedience wrote:

The Undiscovered Country expands the scale of war to the intergalactic, enabled by technology, and gives us a glimpse of what you described would look like at that level. Of course we find it's not much different from our own circumstances, but that's what the best sci-fi always does: present a new technological possibility and use it to reflect back on relevant issues across various fields.

The technology in the Undiscovered Country is almost entirely irrelevant to the plot - yes, there's the bit about the new cloaking device, but as far as the plot is concerned, it could have just as easily been plain ol' sabotage, or a traitor aboard the Enterprise, or anything.

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MorbidBlood wrote:

So the winner is Destruction and Infernal Overkill is the motherfucking skullcrushing poserkilling satan-worshiping 666 FUCK YOU greatest german thrash record.

Also, I saw Universal Soldier: Day Of Reckoning, which is strangely compelling? Like, it looks really professional and has some really great cinematography. There's a scene towards the beginning that looked like it could've dropped out of a super-stylish, hyper-violent eighties action movie, with some John Woo-esque camera work. The movie isn't a through and through action movie, but it's weirdly suspenseful and genuinely interesting in a lot of places. Also most of the action is super violent, though. The opening scene is pretty crazy.

I think I'm developing a strange fetish for ultra-violence in movies. I've always been a fan of super violence, but I feel like I'm not satiated with a movie unless somebody gets their face ripped off, or gets a limb blown off and the ensuing carnage is gallons of blood splattering. I'm still not a fan of tortuous violence. Never have been, really.

I hear ya; stuff like "torture porn" for example is pretty unessecary. But good ol' ultraviolence is good fun. Robocop, The Raid, The Punisher: War Zone ( hey, I enjoyed it!), Rambo IV...and yeah Day of Reckoning kicked ass too. The Unisol massacre at the end was awesome!

Also, I saw Universal Soldier: Day Of Reckoning, which is strangely compelling? Like, it looks really professional and has some really great cinematography. There's a scene towards the beginning that looked like it could've dropped out of a super-stylish, hyper-violent eighties action movie, with some John Woo-esque camera work. The movie isn't a through and through action movie, but it's weirdly suspenseful and genuinely interesting in a lot of places. Also most of the action is super violent, though. The opening scene is pretty crazy.

I think I'm developing a strange fetish for ultra-violence in movies. I've always been a fan of super violence, but I feel like I'm not satiated with a movie unless somebody gets their face ripped off, or gets a limb blown off and the ensuing carnage is gallons of blood splattering. I'm still not a fan of tortuous violence. Never have been, really.

I hear ya; stuff like "torture porn" for example is pretty unessecary. But good ol' ultraviolence is good fun. Robocop, The Raid, The Punisher: War Zone ( hey, I enjoyed it!), Rambo IV...and yeah Day of Reckoning kicked ass too. The Unisol massacre at the end was awesome!

Oh man, I thought I was the only one who fucking loved Punisher: War Zone. And before somebody chimes in with, "you're the only two knuckleheads who did," kill yourself.

Also, I saw Universal Soldier: Day Of Reckoning, which is strangely compelling? Like, it looks really professional and has some really great cinematography. There's a scene towards the beginning that looked like it could've dropped out of a super-stylish, hyper-violent eighties action movie, with some John Woo-esque camera work. The movie isn't a through and through action movie, but it's weirdly suspenseful and genuinely interesting in a lot of places. Also most of the action is super violent, though. The opening scene is pretty crazy.

I think I'm developing a strange fetish for ultra-violence in movies. I've always been a fan of super violence, but I feel like I'm not satiated with a movie unless somebody gets their face ripped off, or gets a limb blown off and the ensuing carnage is gallons of blood splattering. I'm still not a fan of tortuous violence. Never have been, really.[/quote]I hear ya; stuff like "torture porn" for example is pretty unessecary. But good ol' ultraviolence is good fun. Robocop, The Raid, The Punisher: War Zone ( hey, I enjoyed it!), Rambo IV...and yeah Day of Reckoning kicked ass too. The Unisol massacre at the end was awesome![/quote]Oh man, I thought I was the only one who fucking loved Punisher: War Zone. And before somebody chimes in with, "you're the only two knuckleheads who did," kill yourself.[/quote]

This experimental film is part of a cost-saving, market-widening measure by Hollywood that effectively combines two waning franchises into a single movie. You save money by not having to develop IP just like a regular sequel, but it lets you conveniently combine the more interesting aspects of two different IP's together while leaving out the dull bits. R.I.P.D. is a sequel to last year's Men In Black 3 and also a sequel to 2010's True Grit reboot. In this new mashup, Will Smith is played by Ryan Reynolds, which of course is a horrible casting decision, but it's sort of balanced out by having Tommy Lee Jones' character played by Jeff Bridges' take on Rooster Cogburn. It actually worked surprisingly well. Ryan Reynolds/Will Smith is, of course, a shitty replacement for that snarky little girl from True Grit, but Rooster Cogburn gets a lot of funny lines and is generally a badass old curmudgeon in R.I.P.D..

For some reason the aliens in this one are all dead people, which was sort of a strange twist on the Men In Black lore, but it was fun enough.

Most recent movie I watched was Bartleby with Crispin Glover. Apparently it's based on a short story by Herman Melville, but there's no nautik funeral doom in the movie, sadly. It's very good though, Crispin Glover is the weirdest motherfucker ever.

Love that adaptation - as Melville is my favorite author - and that movie nails the general nuanced strangeness of the book. The seemingly airy and purposeless suffering juxtaposed with work work work work work.

Most recent movie I watched was Bartleby with Crispin Glover. Apparently it's based on a short story by Herman Melville, but there's no nautik funeral doom in the movie, sadly. It's very good though, Crispin Glover is the weirdest motherfucker ever.

Is "nautic funeral doom" the only thing you know about Melville? Hope not...

Purchased a few blu-rays recently that I haven't seen: Dark City, The Descent, Seven Psychopaths, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Baraka, Renaissance, and Warrior.

Finally got around to watching The Descent, and fuck that was fun! The claustrophobia and fear of being lost in the caves felt pretty real, something which most horror movies just don't do for me. A few times, the production had me thinking a dip in quality was imminent, but it was consistently and highly entertaining throughout. I watched the unrated version for the full ending, and definitely appreciated that more than the American ending. Overall, definitely recommended.

And since I've been looking for some good horror/thriller stuff, I'm about to purchase The Exorcist (which I think I saw as a kid but do not remember) and Jacob's Ladder.

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That cold november day, he penned the perfect poem that changed the very fabric of existence.

The Island-Having grown up in a strict community with other survivors of a devastating plague, a couple learn they've been created as clones for people to live longer and go on the run to expose the truth, forcing a mercenary team to race to stop them. This one turned out to be quite a troubling effort as there's an equal amount of positives and negatives here. The main one that hurts this one the most is the absolutely ridiculous amount of camera distortion that plagues this one, as the camera can't stay still at all. This one shakes around so much that not only is it impossible to get a handle on what the scene is supposed to feature but also to ensure that what's on-screen is so distorted it can't be made out. Not even the background props in the scene can be made out during this tactic beyond whatever action is supposed to be happening, and it takes a few seconds after the fact to realize what's happening here. That this is mostly taking place in the second half is quite problematic, since there's almost nothing of interest in the first half beyond the twist of the type of environment they're living in. It's handled well, but it doesn't come off as interesting as not a lot happens to warrant interest and it just plods along at a pretty boring pace. That said, the second half is just all sorts of awesome with plenty of outstanding action pieces including the spectacular chase in the city on the back of the transport truck, the helicopter gunfight and the high-speed hover bike sequence which is just flat-out fun. Stops the action to get a little too heavy on the espionage, but the action works too well to matter and features enough humor in their learning of the human society to generate some counter to the negatives.

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joppek wrote:

enigmatech wrote:

I don't consider Portal to be a death metal band, because I haven't heard their albums, and I'm not interested in their music

i don't consider gordon ramsay to be a chef, because i haven't been to his restaurants, and i'm not interested in his food

Weird, I also sort of liked The Island, but I have just about the reverse assessment of it. I thought the first half was a lot more interesting while the more generic action bits in the second half felt like they just weren't sure where to take the story.

I think I'm developing a strange fetish for ultra-violence in movies. I've always been a fan of super violence, but I feel like I'm not satiated with a movie unless somebody gets their face ripped off, or gets a limb blown off and the ensuing carnage is gallons of blood splattering. I'm still not a fan of tortuous violence. Never have been, really.

Are you a fan of films like Riki-Oh, Taeter City, and Adam Chaplin? Or are those a bit too over the top and silly?

Riki-Oh is great! The best kung fu film I've seen aside from The Legend of Drunken Master with Jackie Chan. I like The Chinese Connection with Bruce Lee as well. I have Enter the Dragon on VHS, but haven't watched it yet.

I think I'm developing a strange fetish for ultra-violence in movies. I've always been a fan of super violence, but I feel like I'm not satiated with a movie unless somebody gets their face ripped off, or gets a limb blown off and the ensuing carnage is gallons of blood splattering. I'm still not a fan of tortuous violence. Never have been, really.

Are you a fan of films like Riki-Oh, Taeter City, and Adam Chaplin? Or are those a bit too over the top and silly?

What the fuck is any of that shit?

I prefer action movies where normal violence immediately amps up to super violence, or there's quick, shocking jolts of super violence. Such as in Bad Boys II where Marcus puts a hot round in Tapia's head, falls backward into the sand, then immediately has his upper body blown off via land mine. Or when Rambo turns the jeep turret on a Burmese army-men and he just explodes. Or Punisher punching a brat kid's face open. Or the Driver stomping a dude's face in in the elevator.

Adam Chaplin looks slightly interesting, though. It looks like the Fist Of The North Star live-action movie that should have been.

Weird, I also sort of liked The Island, but I have just about the reverse assessment of it. I thought the first half was a lot more interesting while the more generic action bits in the second half felt like they just weren't sure where to take the story.

I don't think that's weird at all. The first half was a lot more interesting and the second half was just tired action film clichés done poorly and seemed like a lot of stuff was fit in just to appease Ewan McGregor's hobbies. What's weird is that you actually sort of liked it since it was pretty damn bad. Well, alright, as was mentioned the first half had its moments, but the second half left such a bad taste in one's mouth as to completely dismiss the movie as anything except dumb action of the week.

This experimental film is part of a cost-saving, market-widening measure by Hollywood that effectively combines two waning franchises into a single movie. You save money by not having to develop IP just like a regular sequel, but it lets you conveniently combine the more interesting aspects of two different IP's together while leaving out the dull bits. R.I.P.D. is a sequel to last year's Men In Black 3 and also a sequel to 2010's True Grit reboot. In this new mashup, Will Smith is played by Ryan Reynolds, which of course is a horrible casting decision, but it's sort of balanced out by having Tommy Lee Jones' character played by Jeff Bridges' take on Rooster Cogburn. It actually worked surprisingly well. Ryan Reynolds/Will Smith is, of course, a shitty replacement for that snarky little girl from True Grit, but Rooster Cogburn gets a lot of funny lines and is generally a badass old curmudgeon in R.I.P.D..

For some reason the aliens in this one are all dead people, which was sort of a strange twist on the Men In Black lore, but it was fun enough.

Man, I found it quite excruciating to watch. Very unfunny especially when I felt the trailer seemed quite promising. Trailers are misleading these days. Anyway, I agree with your whole "analysis" though

I think late last year, I had mentioned that Before Midnight was slated for release this year. It turns out I had missed it when it came out. Time to change that now! Anyone seen it? I know it's romcom or something along those lines, which is a stark deviation from what people here usually watch so...

Oh yeah, don't get me wrong, R.I.P.D. was mostly a huge piece of shit. Ryan Reynolds is just so goddamn lifeless. I might have *vaguely* been interested in a movie that's basically Men In Black worship if it weren't for the fact that MIB III was just way better than R.I.P.D. in every aspect. I wasn't kidding about Jeff Bridges being enjoyable, at least, so there's that.

I think late last year, I had mentioned that Before Midnight was slated for release this year. It turns out I had missed it when it came out. Time to change that now! Anyone seen it? I know it's romcom or something along those lines, which is a stark deviation from what people here usually watch so...

Haven't yet, but I really should. I didn't think much of Before Sunset, it was definitely a good movie but it kinda spoiled my romantic adolescent concepts of love that Before Sunrise instilled in me. The prospect of seeing Ethan & Julie even older doesn't appeal to me much, but on the other hand it might give me a less depressing outlook than Sunset on how the two end up.

failsafeman wrote:

Expedience wrote:

The Undiscovered Country expands the scale of war to the intergalactic, enabled by technology, and gives us a glimpse of what you described would look like at that level. Of course we find it's not much different from our own circumstances, but that's what the best sci-fi always does: present a new technological possibility and use it to reflect back on relevant issues across various fields.

The technology in the Undiscovered Country is almost entirely irrelevant to the plot - yes, there's the bit about the new cloaking device, but as far as the plot is concerned, it could have just as easily been plain ol' sabotage, or a traitor aboard the Enterprise, or anything.

How can it be irrelevant when without starships intergalactic diplomacy wouldn't be possible?

Dagon (2001) - 3/5Great Spanish horror cult film. Low-Mid budget production, actors and actresses isn't that good but the whole film concept is entertaining to watch though, thrilling from beginning to the end. Also the human like-sea creatures concept is actually very good, very terrifying and mysterious.

Beneath Still Waters - 2.5/5 - Another cult horror film with limited budget production and not so good actors and actresses. Also chilling but ain't as good as Dagon.

I'm hoping for an excellent film remake on both titles. Of course with enough budget, great casts and more hot chicks!

The Lost Boys - Holy shit, this movie is pure eighties. Corey Haim and Corey Feldman. The guy from Bill & Ted who isn't Keanu Reeves. Kiefer Sutherland playing the obnoxious leader of a group of douchebags like he did in Stand by Me (which also had Corey Feldman). Characters talking about MTV like it's actually relevant. And it's directed by Joel Schumacher before his 1990s Batman / Grisham phase.

This is one of those movies I liked as a kid and, years later, I find it has aged reasonably well. My only major complaint is that the script should have reduced by about 90% the occurrences of "Michael" or "Mike." Yes, screenwriters, I got the name of the Jason Patric character. You don't need to remind me 5 times whenever he's on camera.

_________________Currently listening toKing Diamond - Them (Finally built up a tolerance for vocals)

Continuing my streak of shitty sci-fi, today I watched After Earth. Holy shit, what a terrible, terrible movie. I'm not even going to spoiler tag this because if you care that much about After Earth I already hate you.

So Will Smith's son is about as bad an actor as is humanly possible. That little puppet creature that bit Jabba the Hutt's tail in that one scene has more acting talent in his little buck tooth than Will Smith Jr. has in his entire life (yes, including any he may learn down the road). He's seriously awful, and not only is he the star of this thing (way more screen time than Sr.) but he also actually provides voiceover during the beginning. He sounds like an awkward 15 year old stumbling through a script trying to fake some nondescript formal accent but without any training in acting, because that's what he is. On top of that, the script itself is about as bare-bones and boring as you can imagine.

I'm not normally one to really nitpick details in fantasy or sci-fi, but holy shit some of the plot points in this movie were about as dumb as could possibly be. So aliens have genetically engineered supermonsters with the sole purpose of wiping out humanity, yet they only way they can even "see" us is when we're emitting fear pheromones? That was the dumbest goddamn thing I'd ever heard, until I found out that apparently 2000 years in the future, when these monsters are like, our main adversary and dominate all other socioeconomic issues to become humanity's primary concern, they don't have fucking sealed space suits that can block pheromones? I can go down to Bass Pro and buy a suit that blocks pheromones RIGHT NOW. Also, even though we have spaceships with warp drives and antivenom kits that automatically treat every type of venom you can think of (and even those you can't, since it works on totally alien types of venoms too), we somehow managed to forget about guns. So we fight these man-hunting superbeasts with swords. Really shitty swords too, that aren't even lightsabers or anything.

This movie gets 5/5 bags of dog poop left on M. Night Shyamalan's doorsteep. Why this guy didn't leave the industry in shame after that Avatar movie is anyone's guess.

I need to watch it again, if only because it's one of the few movies I've seen in the last couple years that does not seem like it will ever get old. Just watching clips of it on Youtube got me drooling for it again.

Continuing my streak of shitty sci-fi, today I watched After Earth. Holy shit, what a terrible, terrible movie. I'm not even going to spoiler tag this because if you care that much about After Earth I already hate you.

They're both pretty terrible, but yes, Death Proof is definitely a step more boring than Planet Terror. I can't remember a single scene from the latter actually while I can remember the excruciating second half of the former. Christ.

Planet Terror is awesome. Hilarious, gory and unrepentent. Just a killer horror/comedy flick, one of the better in that style from the mid 2000s. Reminds me a bit of old movies like Brain Dead or something in its style and execution, actually.

Death Proof is OK. Still better than Django Unchained in my opinion - probably Tarantino's worst.